Image by Foxtongue
This blog is now around four and a half months old, and the amount I’ve learned about blogging in that time has been astounding! I started off naively just putting up content and hoping people would read it, and as luck would have it, I instinctively did the right thing – made lots of comments on other blogs.
I don’t consider myself as someone who knows a lot about blogging, far from it, but I thought it would be nice if I shared a few of the tricks I’ve learned so far, as so many of the big blogs about blogging contain lots of information, but much of it is only really useful to the very high-traffic sites. In trying to build up my own traffic I’ve come across some very useful tools both for driving traffic towards a blog and finding new blogs to read.
Blog Directories
It may seem pretty obvious, but listing your blog in as many directories as possible can be a great way to drive traffic to it. Aside from the fact that people looking for blogs on your particular topic may look at directories, getting your link on as many sites as possible will hopefully raise it’s search engine ranking. (I’m no SEO expert, but that’s how I gather it works anyway!)
For some great blog directories, take a look to the left-hand column under “buttons”.
SEO
Search Engine Optimisation – this is the next area I intend to learn about once I have a bit of a break from the pressure of my course. I know little to nothing about it at the moment aside from the fact that it’s meant to be very important, but for those of you who use WordPress.org-based blogs, I have a little tip. The All In One SEO Pack plugin quadrupled my “spider” hits overnight, and does seem to have increased the hits I get from search engines.
Entrecard
A great website for finding new blogs to read whilst promoting your own, Entrecard.com allows bloggers to advertise on each-others’ blogs using a special widget, paid for in points. These points are primarily earned by visiting other blogs that carry the widget and clicking the “drop” button to show you’ve dropped by. The website categorises the blogs so that you can visit ones within your niche, or on subjects that interest you, thus while you’re earning points to advertise your own blog you can find new blogs to read!
Alpha Inventions
As with most people (if the comments visitors leave are anything to go by), I discovered Alpha Inventions when I noticed I’d suddenly received quite a lot of visits from there. It’s a wesbite that tracks blog updates and shows a “snapshot” of the blog on the website. You can also submit your own blog and it goes into a “reading cycle” in which each blog is shown in turn. If you’re a little bored, it’s a great site to load up and watch for a bit, wait for the interesting articles to appear!
I’ve also found tweeting my posts as I make them is a great way to draw attention to an update. Twitter is a really wonderful tool for connecting with people and I always click on the links I see appearing on Twhirl or whatever client I’m using at the time. I’m sure others must do too.
What great blogging tools have you discovered that have helped you grow and develop your blog?
Twitter is definitely a big help. I’ve also found that networking and posting comments on other blogger’s blogs is a great way to draw new readers to my site.
This was a very helpful read, thank you. I’ve been reading your blog for a little while now and I’m surprised it’s only 4 1/2 months old! I’m definitely planning on using some of your tips.
Thanks for the advice. I think I will need to take a day to get my head round all this though.
x
These tips are great – thank you! My blog is pretty new and so I’ll definitely be trying out some of these ideas. I tihnk like the Georgie’s post above I’ll definitely need to take some time and sit down and have a massive blog-promote-athon though!
My blog is also four months old! We’re twins
I’m looking into that SEO plugin – how exaclty does that work? I’ve always wanted to get some tips from someone who’s used it before. If you could email me, that’d be lovely.
Wonderful tips! Twitter is SUCH an amazing way to get the word out about your blog.
Lots of love xoxo
Entrecard is without a doubt the best method I used, and I have met some great blogs and bloggers through it. However, to earn credits you need to visit loads of sites and I just feel it’s way too time consuming. I would rather visit a smaller number and leave comments etc. As for the other methods, they are some great tips! Twitter has been great for me too.
I actually don’t have a clue how the SEO pack works I’m afraid, I just know it seems to! I’ll be studying SEO the first chance I get, but I don’t have time to delve into it at the moment.
Entrecard can be time-consuming but you appear to get bonuses when you display ads on your widget that add up quite quickly. I tend to use these do buy ads and only go clicking when I want to find new ones to read (or I’m bored).
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